Scottish football is a joke... Spurs' Bale tactics are hardly the second coming of Rinus Michels, but they're effective... Why Sunderland are Premier League padding

Celtic are 21
points clear and they could win the title in a fortnight. The second
best team in Scotland are currently 22 points clear in the Third
Division.

Last summer the bloodthirsty
desire to punish Rangers resulted in the death of Scottish football as
sustainable worthy entertainment.

The first of five: Joe Ledley celebrates after opening the scoring for Celtic in their 5-0 procession over hapless Dundee

IT'S HARDLY THE SECOND COMING OF RINUS MICHELS, BUT WELL DONE SPURS

Third is exactly where Spurs should be
right now.

Chelsea’s attempt to break the world record for the amount of
times a club can self-destruct in one season is well on course to
succeed.

Meantime Arsenal continue to sell their best players and buy
rubbish to replace them – mismanagement of the highest order by a man
who apparently cannot be sacked.

Third in the Premier League is the bare minimum Spurs fans
should demand this season.

The tactic of giving the ball to Gareth Bale
and letting him have as many shots as possible clearly seems to be
working.

It’s not exactly the second coming of Rinus Michels (above) admittedly,
more total Bale than total football. But well done Spurs and well done AVB.

The Rangers-haters got what they
wanted, and ended up with a joke league. Good work.

There’s a cryptic
message for devolution lovers in there somewhere.

Below Celtic, four points separate eight teams.
It would be a decent league worth watching if you took Celtic out of it,
which is surely the only sensible solution.

The 5-0 thrashing of bottom club Dundee
at the weekend was a training exercise and Celtic Park was nowhere near
full. And why would fans pay to watch their team train?

Celtic have
scored 53 more goals than Dundee already this season. It was an
embarrassing mis-match.

We’re seeing the net result of this in
Europe as well. Yes the crowd, the spirit and the whole atmosphere at
Celtic when a juggernaut of world football like Barcelona arrive in town
can carry Celtic through the odd night or two. But that can only take
you so far. And Neil Lennon’s side were subsequently swept aside by
Juventus.

The conclusion is this: the SPL is a
joke, and it needs sorting out before the passion of the fans is diluted
by the meaningless football north of the border.

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When Grant Holt bundled in Norwich City’s winner on Saturday Everton manager David Moyes started looking for excuses.

Unfortunately he then proceeded to
let himself down by charging onto the field moments later, refusing to
shake hands with the referee, and demanding the official gave an
explanation for adding an extra 16 seconds to the displayed 3 minutes of
stoppage time.

In hindsight Moyes would probably choose not to take that course of action because he didn’t look good.But he did have a point.

Added time is meant to be a minimum
number of minutes decided by the referee. Any extra is at the discretion
of the man in the middle. And that is where it gets a bit unclear.

Moyes was asking for an explanation of why those extra seconds were added. The referee is not obliged to explain.

Earlier this season Brian McDermott
complained when Kevin Friend added 6 minutes when only four were
displayed – Arsenal scored an equaliser in that time and ended up
winning their League Cup tie 7-5.

McDermott said afterwards: 'You can’t
tell the time as wrong as that, but he did.'

Sir Alex Ferguson had the opposite
problem against Spurs this season – not enough time. Six substitutions, three
goals and persistent time-wasting for the last half an hour of the game
were deemed worthy of just four minutes added time by referee Chris Foy.

Not enough according to the Manchester United manager.

You get unacceptable situations like
Manchester United being unable to take a corner away to Real Madrid
because the ref had blown for full-time despite the fact the ball was
out of play. Same happened to Juventus against Roma recently in Serie A.

Stopping a clock in real time when the
ball goes out of play might seem obvious, but the ball is actually in
play for less than 65 minutes in most Premier League games. Matches
would go on and on and on.

It does seem absurd that referees are
asked to look after the time-keeping. My answer is to hand the watch
over to the fourth official immediately and it’s one less huge thing for
the refs to worry about.

And it means less moaning about Fergie time
from Sir Alex.

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Is it boring being a Sunderland fan?

They’re not involved in relegation battles, they don’t aim for the top four, and they don’t get to cup finals.

They went out of both cups at home to Championship sides this season, but they usually have a win against a top four side each season – they beat Champions Manchester City on Boxing Day.

Sunderland are Premier League padding. Having been in the top flight since 2007 they surely can no longer say survival is their main aim.

But then what? Would they even be better off having a season in the Championship, going for promotion? Or better still getting to a play-off final and having a day out at Wembley?

The fact that Sunderland were prepared to pay good money for a striker who had no hunger to stay at Swansea and play some part in a cup final at Wembley tells you a lot about the ambition at The Stadium of Light. A player not interested in glory seems to have found the right club for him.

This could all sort itself out if Sunderland’s current form continues – they’ve lost all three games in February. And they’re not safe from the drop. It could be their most interesting season in years.

BRUCEY BONUS?

Last week Steve Bruce signed a player
who had created three goals and scored one in his previous game.

He left him
on the bench at Bolton.

Hull lost 4-1. Managing a football club really
isn’t rocket science is it?

I’d like to think David Beckham’s 15-minute debut for Paris Saint-Germain would shut the critics up. But sadly they’re not interested in watching him play football – they’ve judged him already. The irony of that might even make Victoria smile.

For the sceptics, he came on in central midfield to try to stop the Marseille surge towards an inevitable equaliser.

Beckham’s job was to get PSG going forward somehow. It was a night when Ibrahimovic was at his lazy, useless worst, and Lavezzi alongside him was being brilliant one minute and then unable to control the football the next.

Beckham’s first pass was from deep in his own half out to Lavezzi on the halfway line. He then gave away a free kick, tactically not the worst decision to make in that moment.

His next two passes were perfect, and took PSG into the Marseille half. He then over-hit one out of play for a goal-kick.

Then his best moment: a lovely flick into the path of Jeremy Menez in the Marseille box, the ball almost tempted the defender to make a challenge, but he knew it might result in a penalty. Instead Menez fired it across goal, and it hit Zlatan’s knee and went in.

It was 15 minutes, Beckham did his job, and Paris won the match. God knows what the haters would have said if he had been rubbish.

Star turn: David Beckham (red top) of PSG is pictured on the bench with his new team-mates prior toSunday's 2-0 win over Marseille